WWCC 2013: Day 6 Early Round-up

Victoria, CanadaApril 4, 2013

Scotland confirmed their place in the Page 1-2 Play-off game this weekend at the Ford World Men's Curling Championship in Victoria, Canada when they beat China by 7-4 in Thursday morning on the final day of round-robin play.

Scotland were the first team to reach the play-offs after defeating China Photo: WCF/CCA/Michael Burns

After the game against China, Scottish skip David Murdoch said: "That was a solid game, nice and steady. We played with a nice calmness today, we didn't need to get over-excited about anything - just play our game and make our shots. That's us definitely 1-2 so that feels great. What we need to do now is take that form into the Page weekend."

The Scots went on to complete their round-robin programme against Finland and lost to a fired-up Finnish team by 9-10. This was a see-saw game in which Finland opened with a score of three points in the first end when skip Aku Kauste made a strong hit.

Scotland skip David Murdoch responded with a well-judged draw for four points in the fourth end to take a 6-5 lead, but gave up a steal of three points in the sixth end. The Scots fought back scoring in each of the next three ends but eventually Finnish skip Kauste got round a Scottish guard with his last to hit for one point and his win.

Afterwards, Kauste said: “We’ve been having so many close games and tough losses. This one, we got lucky in the sixth end; David wanted to go for the big shot for two points and he got the worst possible result. We tried to just hang in there and play well, but it was pretty tough.”

Also in the morning session, Sweden did their medal prospects a power of good by beating Denmark 7-6 to record their sixth win of the week, while the Czech Republic also kept their medal hopes alive with a 10-5 win over Japan, also to move onto six wins.

After his win, Czech skip Jiri Snitil said: "We’re happy that we’re still in it. We had a couple ends this morning when we were facing four or three and made the shots to get out of it." Knowing that he still has a qualification chance, he added: "We’ll try to enjoy our last game, but we’ll focus, go shot by shot, and see what happens."

Meanwhile the USA's play-off hopes ended when Russia, already out of the medal reckoning, beat them by 7-5. Despite this, USA went on to beat Norway by 9-7 in the afternoon session, a result that all but ends Norway's medal hopes.After their morning defeat against Sweden, the Danes had another chance to make progress when they faced Canada in the afternoon game. In this game, Danish skip Rasmus Stjerne executed a difficult in-off a winger in the ninth end to score two points on his way to a 5-3 win that gave his team their seventh win and kept their play-off hopes very much alive.

Afterward their win over Canada Stjerne said: “We played really well and managed to get the crowd out of the game and that made it fairly even. I made the huge shot in the ninth and that pretty much put the game away. We had a tight game against Sweden that we could have won, but after the first few games we’ve picked up the pace and kept it going the rest of the way. I’m just excited to see how it ends now.”In the afternoon session, Switzerland faced Japan and the Swiss had a good start, scoring three points in the third end to build up a 5-2 lead before eventually emerging as 8-5 winners.

These results leave Canada, Denmark, Sweden and Czech Republic, Norway, China and Switzerland all still in the hunt for Page Play-off places.

With the Ford World Men's Championship now nearing its climax, the official declaration of the nations qualified directly for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, will be made by the World Curling Federation (WCF) following the final on Sunday. Seven nations plus hosts, Russia, will secure a spot following the conclusion of the 2013 World Championships.

Nations not qualifying directly for the 2014 Games will be eligible to take part in a new WCF Olympic Qualifying Event to be staged between 11-15 December 2013, at a location yet to be announced.

Two nations will qualify from the event in both men’s and women’s disciplines to complete the Olympic fields of 10 teams. National Olympic Committees are required to endorse team entry for this event by the end of May 2013. On confirmation of the number of competing teams, the competition format will be made public by the WCF at the start of June 2013.

World Curling TV (WCTV), the television arm of the World Curling Federation, will provide extensive live and video-on-demand coverage to broadcasters outside Canada of the Ford World Men’s Curling Championship 2013. WCF Broadcast Partners for the 2013 World Curling Championships include Eurosport (Eurosport, Eurosport 2 and Eurosport Player) in Europe, NHK in Japan, CCTV-5 in China, Universal Sports Network in the USA, SporTV in Brazil. In Canada, TSN (RDS in French) will carry all Team Canada games throughout the round robin, followed by the playoffs and medal games. http://www.worldcurling.org/tv-web-coverage

In addition, Curling fans around the world are able to follow selected live coverage of the Events via the World Curling Federation’s YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/WorldCurlingTV